PENTECOST: Promise, Presence and Power
Acts 2:1-11; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13; John: 20:19-23
It happened on the Jewish feast of Pentecost, the Festival of Weeks, Shavuot, seven weeks and one day after the Feast of Passover. It was a festival of the Harvest, the thanksgiving for the Gifts of God, and came to also be for the Jews a celebration of when God’s greatest gift to them was given, the gift of the Law, given to Moses on Mount Sinai. It was a festival that was immensely popular and very well attended, not just because of its religious nature, but because this was the only day that a faithful Jew was allowed to drink to excess. In fact, some rabbis of the period taught that all of the Jewish men had to drink to the point of intoxication on this day as a sign of their gratitude to God for the gift of the fruit of the vine.
It happened in an upper room: whirling wind banging shutters open, gusts grabbing and pulling at long garments, plumes of dust from the street below. Their faces—Mary’s, the Apostles’—startled, fearful, anxious.
More wind, and some light, a blazing light. And then a dove, serene and demur, hovering over the overturned tables, shuffling sandals. Gasps, then cries of recognition. Fear gives way to exuberant joy. Delightful disorder! Upraised hands waving, sounds of preaching escaping from mouths full of surprise. Tongues shouting, singing, speaking with fluid syntax the syllables of strange languages strangely making sense.
These are components that capture our fancy today. Like a tent revival down south, the Feast of Pentecost is an outing of color and heat and movement that even the most rubrical among us cannot deny. Yet, this culmination of the fifty days of Easter is but a beginning, a birth . . . of the Church. The fanfare in the Upper Room is but a sendoff as we see disciples rushing down steps, pouring into the streets of Jerusalem to proclaim the Good News with confidence and hope.
And today, on the rush of the wind of the Holy Spirit, we Christians are energized and empowered as we reach the climax of our seasonal celebration of Christ’s resurrection. It’s Pentecost, the day God gives us the wind of the Spirit in our sails and also the fire of the Spirit in our hearts—the fire of divine presence—to proclaim and serve the Risen Christ. For on Pentecost, amidst wind and tumbling tongues of fire, the Church, as the people of Christ, was born and continues regularly to be reborn!
Did you ever ask yourself why Pentecost is considered the birthday of the Church? Why not Easter, the day our Lord conquered sin and death, and proved that everything he taught, everything he said about himself was true? Why not on at the Ascension, when Jesus commissioned his Apostles to “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature?” Why Pentecost? Because that day was a day of presence; it was a day of promise, and it was a day of power.
- It was a Day of Presence: Jesus had told his Apostles, “I will be with you always, even until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20). And that day, Jesus kept his word. By sending his Spirit TO them, he remained WITH them. And his abiding presence is with us still: guiding us, strengthening us, counseling us, comforting us, transforming us. We, as Church and as the individual members of it, are not alone . . . and never will be. The Spirit is the presence of God for all of us, not just for those early disciples.
- It was a Day of Promise: Jesus had told them, “The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name—he will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.” (John 14:26). And on Pentecost, Jesus fulfilled that promise. He sends the Holy Spirit upon them, and with the presence of the Holy Spirit come the Gifts of the Spirit, one of which is Understanding. And so, all that Jesus had taught them over the three years he was with them, they now hear with new ears. The tongues of fire that danced above their heads illuminate their minds. What they heard before in the darkness of confusion and ignorance, they now see and understand in the light of faith.
- And it was a Day of Power: For on that day, those gathered in that Upper Room lived the Gospel. On that day, “Church” went beyond being a proper noun to becoming an action verb. On that day, eleven men and a handful of women left the prison cell of the Upper Room that had held them captive in fear and doubt and ignorance to set the world on fire. On that day God used uneducated fishermen, a tax collector, and some other nobodies from nowhere, to transform the world. On the day Christianity was taken beyond the walls of that Upper Room, the first church, out into the streets, out into the real world to be proclaimed and lived. And they do so with so much joy, and energy and enthusiasm that the people mistakenly believe that they have begun celebrating the harvest festival a bit early in the day. But rather than being drunk with new wine, they have become intoxicated with the Spirit of God. And so it must be today. We need to quit hiding behind closed doors, beyond the comfort, the beauty, the security of the walls of this church to BECOME Church to a world that challenges our beliefs, mocks how we live our lives, and frightens us with terror and violence. We, like those eleven men and handful of women, are called to set the world on fire. For, as the poet William Blake wrote:
Unless the eye catch fire, God will not be seen.
Unless the ear catch fire, God will not be heard.
Unless the tongue catch fire, God will not be named.
Unless the Heart catch fire, God will not be loved.
Unless the mind catch fire, God will not be known.
The celebration of Pentecost must never be the mere commemoration of a historical event. The celebration of Pentecost is the affirmation of the living reality of God in our lives. For we Catholics Christians are not just members of an organization, or a social body, or a fellowship of people. We are God’s People formed by and united by His Spirit into the living Body of Christ. We are sacred. We are holy. We are set apart by God and for God. We are the living presence of Christ on earth. We here at St. Therese, in this Diocese, in this township, in this state, in this country, in this world, have been empowered by our Master, Jesus Christ, with his Spirit, the Holy Spirit. We are called to continue his work on earth.
May every action of our lives radiate the dignity that God bestowed upon us on that first Pentecost Sunday. May our lives burn with the same intensity of energy, enthusiasm, and dedication as those eleven men and handful of women who rushed from an upper room and into the streets to proclaim Good News and to live lives in the example of their Master. For the same Spirit has been given to us all.
